RT Journal Article
T1 Photoredox Unmasking of Aromatic CH Bonds in Living Environments Enabled by Thianthrenium Salts
A1 Mato, Mauro
A1 Rivas Saborido, Adrián
A1 Casas Pais, Alba
A1 Tomás Gamasa, María
A1 Mascareñas Cid, José Luis
K1 Aromatic compounds
K1 Cells
K1 Pharmaceuticals
K1 Salts
AB Prodrug strategies traditionally rely on masking polar functional groups of bioactive molecules with protecting units that can be removed by specific stimuli in biological settings. Here, we introduce an alternative uncaging approach that bypasses the need for heteroatom handles, based on reversible masking of aromatic C–H bonds with thianthrenium groups. Unmasking is triggered by low-energy photoredox activation, which generates aryl radicals that are rapidly reduced by endogenous bioreductants to restore the native C–H bond. Beyond establishing the feasibility of photoredox radical chemistry in living cells, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept application of this strategy for the modulation of activity of antifungal agents
PB American Chemical Society
YR 2026
FD 2026-02-07
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46846
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46846
LA eng
NO Mato, M., Rivas-Saborido, A., Casas-Pais, A., Tomás-Gamasa, M., & Mascareñas, J. L. (2026). Photoredox Unmasking of Aromatic C–H Bonds in Living Environments Enabled by Thianthrenium Salts. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 148(6), 5946–5952. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6c00530
NO Financial support for this work was provided by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) (Ramón y Cajal RYC2023-043998-I for MM and RYC2020-029150-I for MTG; Grants PID2022-137318OB-I00, CNS2024-154736, IHRC22-00009 and ORFEO–CINQA network RED2022-134287-T), the Xunta de Galicia (Grant ED431C 2021/25, ED431C 2025/02, and ED431G 2023/03: Centro de investigación do Sistema universitario de Galicia accreditation 2023–2027), and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund-ERDF 2014–2020). Some of the images embedded in the figures were created with BioRender.com. We thank Dr. Bruno Sainz and Dr. Yolanda Pazos for providing HeLa and HepG2 cell lines, respectively. We thank Dr. Manuel Romero and Dr. Ana Otero for providing S. aureus and B. thuringiensis, respectively. We thank Rebeca Menaya-Vargas, Dr. Arcadio Guerra, and Dr. Celia Mayer for technical assistance and the Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Unit from the RIADT–USC.
DS Minerva
RD 7 may 2026